Ruralpolitans - city and town dwellers who move to the country to adopt more self-reliant lifestyle, look at land as new safe investment, one they hope could prove more stable than their jobs and 401(k)s. Interest in small-scale hobby farming has bloomed. But murky well water, voracious weeds, assorted vermin add their own pressures. And: Home buyers drawn to nearby organic farms; developers see success, try concept on inactive farmland, even on formerly industrial land (click 'See also').

In FarmVille, sun always shines, crops always grow and your friends drop by to do chores. FarmVille, led by Zynga, which hooked 9 million users in a week after launching Fishville, promise addictiveness of computer games with communality of Facebook, MySpace. They draw people who would never touch a console game or World of Warcraft - stay-at-home mothers, office workers on break, families. This is partly because they feel safer playing with friends and partly because there aren't quite enough other things to do on social networks. But product come-ons are the underbelly of industry, and bills can add up.

War veterans learn about themselves, find measure of peace in New Jersey VA center's vegetable gardens; one vet begins landscaping business as result. Medical center gardens grew out of link to nonprofit Planetree organization; veterans removed lawn to till 20-by-50-foot plots and this summer harvested more than 1,000 pounds of produce, which was given to other patients and also used at house cafe.

After DHL closes offices in southwestern Ohio town and food pantries report unprecedented demand, college provides 20 plots, teaches people how to garden. As green beans, tomatoes ripened, gardening lessons were supplemented by lessons on cooking and preserving crops. Now, nine volunteers from VISTA are expanding 'Grow Food, Grow Hope' program to more families and more seasons, and teaching schoolchildren how to garden.

Diabetes cases projected to nearly double in U.S. in next 25 years, nearly tripling care costs; Medicare spending on diabetes expected to jump from $45 billion to $171 billion and could exceed projections for all Medicare costs, study shows. Researchers' estimates based on stable obesity rates. Greatest growth in obesity has been among obese diabetics who are getting heavier, but focusing solely on overall obesity rates minimizes the magnitude of a massive public health problem, says researcher.

Feds, in examination of non-agricultural factors that hinder successful production and sale of food in poor countries, learn that supply of inputs often is monopolized, and that lack of commercial law inhibits loan-making and contracts, so funds flow into government bonds rather than farming. Report on Senegal says that farmers, food traders face 'undue police interference and on-the-road shakedowns' that deter internal transport of food. Such curable woes help explain why a country where 75 percent of people work in the food business must import 70 percent of its food.

Though there are far more than 100 things restaurant staffers never should do, here's the second half of the starter list, including No. 57 - Do not make people beg for a condiment; No. 64 - Specials, spoken and printed, should always have prices; and No. 78 - Do not ask, 'Are you still working on that?' And: The first half of the list from a budding restaurant entrepreneur (click 'See also').

Children's tastes have become more sophisticated, yet at most restaurants, kids' menus are the same, plus they're often high in fat, sodium, and sugar - with no vegetable. Then there's lack of shared experience, what eating is all about. Two most important predictors after innate sweets preference are exposure and role modeling, says expert. Then there's reinforcement of giving children the same menu items over and over, with toys, crayons, games, which forms foundation of what they come to expect when going out for meals.

In contrast to time when foreigners were unwelcome in Romania and journalists' daily quest for food was exasperating, today the country bends over backward to accommodate guests from abroad. This includes translating menus even when proprietors' English might be rudimentary - thus 'pork bone + beans + pickles,' 'fried brain in egg,' 'foul liver in a pan,' 'garlic juice' and 'boneless chicken pulps in a pot.' And: Classic Romanian recipes (click 'See also').

Nearly half - 49.2 percent - of all American children get food stamps at some point; in African-American families, number is a stunning 90 percent. 'Safety net' that should have been ready to catch hungry children is weak, under stress from decades of cuts. In recession, some Americans who complained about paying taxes to help poor will find themselves needing food stamps. What will convince us to rebuild safety net? When ideologues tag as 'fiscal child abuse' the stimulus package or health-care reform, we have to ask: What do you call the fact that kids are going hungry today?

As number of medical marijuana dispensaries grows in Colorado, sushi restaurant chain with penchant for offbeat ads publishes map of Denver, Boulder with 63 dots. Four dots are red, representing the four Hapa Sushi Grill restaurant sites; 59 are blue, representing dispensaries, some of which are just a stone's throw from the restaurants.

Restaurant entrepreneur and author compiles 'modest' list of dos and don'ts for servers at seafood restaurant he's building and starting. Among them: Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong; tables should be level without anyone asking; never say 'I don't know' to any question without following with, 'I'll find out;' never refuse to substitute one vegetable for another.

FarmVille, most popular application in history of Facebook, moves beyond social network. Game's players gather online to share homemade spreadsheets on crops with greatest return, musical odes on YouTube and 'Farmville Art' (click 'See also') with crops arranged to resemble Mona Lisa or Mr. Peanut. Game starts with seeds and land but quickly becomes Sisyphean - cows must be milked, crops harvested. Some academics say popularity points to a widespread yearning for pastoral life. FarmVille players outnumber farmers in U.S. by more than 60 to 1.

Like any place that wears its ideals on its sleeve, New York's Park Slope Coop (click 'See also'), with its stiff work requirements and great bargains, evokes rage, adoration and all emotions in between. But there's little public attention paid to co-op failures and near-failures who have struggled to stay in good standing and have stumbled in cramped aisles. Like me, says writer.

As usual at harvest time, tension between Palestinian farmers, Jewish settlers has risen over who controls the land. Olive tree for Palestinians is symbol of struggle and vital part of rural economy, thus a target for vandals. Nearly 500,000 olive trees have been destroyed in territories since 2000; Israel's army has cleared swathes of groves to create open areas in Gaza Strip, often taking big bites out of Palestinian land, and cut down thousands of trees near Jewish settlements. Palestinians and human-rights groups have repeatedly criticized Israeli army for failing to stop destruction.

After Republican wins North Carolina town's city council seat, he fulfills promise to give gift certificate for garbage disposal. Challenger set up raffle to mock effort by incumbent to ban garbage disposals in Raleigh. And: To cut down on sewer back-ups and resulting environmental damage to streams from food scraps, grease, Raleigh City Council in 2008 prohibited new garbage disposals from being installed or connected to municipal sewer system (click 'See also').

As buying or not buying becomes forum to express convictions and hopes, debate has begun over political meaning. Is 'buycotting' exciting new form of citizenship, or sign that shopping is closest many are willing to come to worrying about labor laws, trade agreements, agriculture policy? Critics say market citizenship, privatizing compassion lets state off easy, that if organic vegetables are better, we should all eat them.

With liquid children's version of anti-flu drug Tamiflu in short supply during H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic, pharmacists are making their own version by mixing specified cherry syrup with contents of Tamiflu capsules. Business at cherry syrup company is brisk. Drug label says that parents, if directed by physician, can make single doses of liquid Tamiflu by mixing drug with sweet liquid such as chocolate syrup.

Artisan-made apple cider is different drink than America's comically weak, inexplicably fizzy mass-market brews made from concentrated juice of eating apples - a bit like making wine from seedless table grapes. Johnny Appleseed, America's most misunderstood folk hero, spread cider westward in early 1800s by planting tart, tannic cider apples. Like wine, good cider is balance of acid, tannin, myriad flavors that result from fermentation. In U.S., try Wandering Aengus Dry is on West Coast; Farnum Hill Extra Dry on East. Better still are small producers - Bellwether and Eve's in upstate New York.

At New Mexico State Fair, new high school horticulture class takes first place for its comb honey and its green onions, snags third for its junior garden display. But real reward is involving Zuni children in ancient agricultural heritage. Using traditional farming practices, students built water-conserving waffle gardens, planted orchards, and in many cases used native seeds handed down through generations of Zuni farmers.

Compass Group, which buys 10 million pounds of tomatoes annually and operates 10,000 cafeterias, agrees with Florida's Coalition of Immokalee Workers to buy winter tomatoes only from growers that pay fair wage, offer good working conditions. And: After Chartwells, a Compass Group subsidiary, takes over Connecticut school food service from Sodexho, some workers say their hours were curtailed; one says cutback made her ineligible for insurance (click 'See also'). Others say they lost paid sick leave, holiday leave, were transferred with little notice and had problems receiving paychecks.

Despite Norman Borlaug's accomplishments in plant breeding that created bumper crops in once poor countries, hunger prevails because of American farm politics, African corruption, war, poverty, climate change, drought. Years of grain surpluses fostered complacency. Farm programs, subsidies in U.S., plus nation's habit of shipping grain to poor undermines markets elsewhere. 'World peace will not be built on empty stomachs or human misery,' said Borlaug, Nobel winner. 'It is within America's technical and financial power to help end this human tragedy and injustice, if we set our hearts and minds to the task.'

Agricultural runoff is single largest source of water pollution in nation's rivers and streams; 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from waterborne parasites, viruses, bacteria. In Wisconsin county, agriculture and dairy bring in $3 billion a year but dairies together produce up to 1 million gallons of manure daily. Regulators say excessive manure, slaughterhouse waste, treated sewage spread on fields there tainted tap water. Clean Water Act largely regulates only contaminants moving through pipes or ditches. EPA has rules for biggest farms, but thousands of animal feedlots don't file paperwork. Powerful farm lobby has blocked previous environmental efforts on Capitol Hill, and in states. And: Other stories in Toxic Water series (click 'See also').

Children's ritual visits to corner market - often before and after school - add average of 360 calories (per visit) to their daily total, subverting fine-tuning of school lunches, upping their odds of obesity-related disease. Food Trust, other Philadelphia health groups see opportunity to reduce calories, and chopped fruit salad sales are up, but their 50-cent bottled water languishes. No mystery: Mini-Hugs (colored sugar water) fly off the shelf at 25 cents, which leaves a quarter to buy a cake called Elim's Delight.

Contrary to events depicted in 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' food poisoning, malnutrition felled more pirates than did sharp objects during fights. Pirates' diet included meat, biscuits, rotten vegetables, stale water, rat droppings. Without vitamin C-rich fruits and vegetables, they often developed scurvy, with symptoms of bleeding gums, fatigue, diarrhea, tooth loss and death. Their close living quarters and lack of hand-washing enabled epidemics.

New open-air farmers' market near White House will sell food raised by about 17 farms in Chesapeake Bay watershed. Organizers say market will underscore value of good nutrition espoused by president, first lady. A fresh produce market last stood nearby during administration of Thomas Jefferson. Vermont Avenue block, which carries 4,600 cars on average day, will be closed to traffic each Thursday afternoon and evening through Oct. 29.

By not addressing food system reform in health care reform, government is putting itself in position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. One of the leading products of American food industry has become patients for American health care industry. When terms like 'pre-existing conditions' vanish, relationship between health insurance industry and food industry will change. When health insurers can no longer evade costs of treating results of American diet, food system reform movement - farm policy, food marketing, school lunches - will gain powerful, wealthy ally.

After two-week ordeal of swine flu involving fevers, listlessness, rooms full of children's snotty tissues littering the floor and - the low point - herself falling onto her back into a puddle of hot mint tea, reporter learns her lesson: Don't share drink with thirsty son just back from summer camp. For more precautions, click 'See also'.

Despite U.S. status as XL nation (CDC says 66 percent of adults are overweight or obese), there's still stigma, anger against fat. As nation, we value hard work and discipline, and it's hard to accept that weight isn't just gluttony or sloth. Fat self is 'bad self,' says one expert; another says that people who are angry at themselves for not being able to manage their weight are more likely to be biased. Then there's idea that our woes result from difficult circumstances, while others make bad choices. Anger, too, is ego-boosting, says another. Then there's report that obesity costs $147 billion a year, mainly in insurance premiums and taxes. Better goal is to fight obesity, not obese.

Speed at which humans have improved technology has obscured our hard-wired abilities to make natural connections - that plants clean the air and water, that termites initiated mounds in which palm trees now grow in Botswana, to sense meanings in the sand, breeze and thickness of air. To solve array of integrated problems - climate change, energy, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, poverty reduction, feeding a hungry, growing population - we must deal with them in integrated way, the way they occur on the ground, says Glenn Prickett, conservation expert.

Growing up on a diverse, chaotic family farm offered decent, varied lives for us and animals. Insipid, efficient food assembly lines produce unhealthy cheap food, mishandle waste and overuse antibiotics in ways that harm us. And it has no soul. Reassurance is in farmer who runs family dairy of 225 Jersey cows so efficiently that it can still compete with factory dairies of 20,000 cows. He names all his cows; they are family friends as well as economic assets. 'When I lose a cow, it bothers me. I kick myself.'

Anyone who smoked in an elementary-school hallway today would be thrown out. But if you served an obesity-inducing, federally financed meal to kindergarten student, you would fit right in. Parents are working longer, and eating takeout; real price of fruits, vegetables has risen 40-plus percent in 30 years; soda prices have fallen 33 percent. Solutions to obesity epidemic involve civic - even political - responsibility. They depend on the kind of collective action that helped cut smoking rates nearly in half.

After 47 of 58 speakers show opposition, Colorado county's food policy council considers that it represents taxpayers, votes against recommending GMO sugar beets for planting in open space land. Dilemma for group was balancing economic well-being of six farmers with community. Genetically modified corn already is allowed on public land. And: Because public acceptance of biotechnology in Europe is lower than in U.S., all Kellogg products sold in Europe are free of any biotech ingredients (click 'See also').

Beekeeping attracts 'worried wealthy,' environmentally aware urban dwellers in England; firm that created popular Eglu, a chic chicken coop, now promises 50 jars of homegrown honey a year from its plastic Beehaus. Bee kit includes suit, lessons, but bees are extra. And: Capturing a swarming hive adds excitement, yields 50 pounds of honey in first season for intrepid beekeeper (click 'See also').

With Poverty 101, lessons come hard and fast: Higher prices for battered produce, day-old bread; no cash on hand to buy in bulk, nor car to make the trip to Costco or Trader Joe's. And: As unemployment rises (it's 15.2 percent in Michigan), calls begin for another extension of jobless benefits (click 'See also'). Over coming months, as many as 1.5 million Americans will exhaust unemployment insurance benefits, ending for some a last bulwark against foreclosures, destitution.

Each obese patient cost health insurers, federal programs $1,429, or 42 percent more than normal-weight patient in 2006, study shows. Obesity-related medical treatments cost $147 billion in 2008, an 87 percent increase in past decade; rates of obesity, a major cause of diabetes, stroke, heart attacks, have more than doubled in last 30 years. Last year, Medicare spent $7 billion on diet-related disease drugs. A person is obese if body mass index is greater than 30 or weighs about 186 pounds for a person who is five feet, six inches tall. And: Calculate your BMI (click 'See also').

Deforestation, warming climate turn Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks and imperiling way of life for Kamayurás. Nearly a third of animals and plants face increased risk of extinction if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit in coming decades; anthropologists fear wave of cultural extinction for dozens of small indigenous groups across globe -- the loss of their traditions, arts and languages.

World record for largemouth bass broken in Japan (pending certification), with 22 pound, 5 ounce bass from Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake. Last record was for 22 pound, 4 ounce bass caught in 1932 in Georgia. Most anglers believe that a bigger bass is swimming in California's south San Joaquin Delta east of Brentwood. And: See the fish on youtube (click 'See also').

Stella D'oro will close Bronx factory and move production elsewhere, owners say after federal judge orders reinstatement of 134 workers on strike for 10 months. And: shutdown notice threw a gut-punch into labor-management tussle that evoked bygone era, when New York City was a hub of manufacturing and laborers had strong hand to play in collective bargaining (click 'See also').

Friends, family form safety net for growing number of newly poor - until poverty depletes entire social networks. One couple moved in with the wife's mother while awaiting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (still called welfare) and after their 7-year-old's response of school assignment - what she would wish of genie - was deemed too disturbing to be displayed: Her wish was for her mother to find a job because there was nothing to eat in the house.

Italian winemakers miffed over wine-flavored beverage powder that they say is copy of Chianti. German company produces range of ready-made packet foods for hikers, says powder ensures that 'mountaineering gourmands no longer have to forego a glass of red wine after conquering a peak,' but denies copying classic. Next up from the company: beer powder.

When career cooks find themselves hungry for a deeper understanding of ingredients, flavor dynamics, cooking techniques that their U.S. Army classes hadn't had time to cover, they sign up for civilian cooking classes. To secure funding, sergeant argued that improved skills would cut down on waste, saving the Army money.

Entrepreneurs' low-tech, stone-heated, $18,000 greenhouse in Minnesota is foundation for community supported agriculture venture, subject for folksy how-to book (click 'See also'), and magnet for those interested in promoting local production of food, reducing carbon footprint and helping to sustain local communities.

Solutions to myriad problems with industrial food system aren't simple, and they may mean paying more for what we eat. But that could mean costs savings for fewer cases of diabetes, other diet-related diseases. We have power, the film, 'Food, Inc.' points out: 'You can vote to change the system three times a day.'

Women, turning to farming, get boost from popularity of farmers markets, buy-local programs, interest of well-heeled, eco-conscious shoppers. 'It's a great feeling to be able to grow food and to be able to share it with people,' says one, who started with vegetable garden and cow named Dinner. 'Being outside, growing food - it's just a great way to live.' More than one in every 10 U.S. farms is run by a woman.

After massive raid on kosher meatpacking plant in northeast Iowa, what was a center of commerce teeters toward collapse as plant sputters in bankruptcy, managers face prison time and shrinking town fights to stay solvent. Other ripples: Midwest livestock farmers who supplied the plant set back; nation's kosher meat supply was ruptured, federal immigration policy evolving to target employers, not employees.

With eligibility for millions in tax credits and New York city pension funds holding about $65 million of company's stock, Costco sets up shop in city, wins permission for its tractor-trailers to drive on residential streets in East Harlem between midnight and 5 a.m. But its no-food-stamp policy cuts off 30,000-plus of those neighbors in East Harlem, as well as the rest of the 1.4 million city residents who received the aid in April.

Good samaritan, her sense of smell hindered by nasal surgery, cleans neglected fridge at office and aroma permeates; co-worker calls 911. In the end, 325 employees evacuate site; 50 firefighters and 18 emergency vehicles race to scene.Twenty-eight people with functioning noses checked out by paramedics, seven others, overcome, take ride to hospital in ambulance. And: A couple of years back, it was smoke alarms in Seattle over burned microwave popcorn (click 'See also').

The Obamas may have planted an organic garden at White House, but first family of farming is in Shenandoah Valley, where Joel Salatin is famous face of Polyface Farm, a self-proclaimed 'beyond organic' livestock operation. Praised techniques include rotational grass grazing, humane treatment of animals and local processing. The farm is open for tours.

Strand of hair is record of dietary changes over time. In elephant family in Kenya, ratio of isotopes of carbon, other elements in hair indicated whether animals were eating grasses, trees, shrubs and how water supply is changing. And: Hair tests show that many Americans are walking corn chips, says plant biologist (click 'See also').

A room, a tasty treat, a 4-year-old. Repeat hundreds of times as researcher did in the '60's to learn that willpower involves either distraction or actively changing way of thinking about object of desire. Motivation plays role, as does physical addiction, and whether object can be avoided.

As recession in Japan worsens, government recruits young underemployed workers to farmer training program with whirlwind lessons in rice and vegetable planting, cleaning pigsties, feeding cattle. Only 4 percent of Japanese labor force works in agriculture and profession is graying and short on workers, but reverence for rice-farming heritage is strong. And: Japan's rural economic system built on tiny, woefully inefficient family farms (click 'See also').

Pomegranates can replace opium poppies for higher profit, beverage entrepreneur, UK grocery chain and Afghanistan tribes agree. 40,000 trees planted, with half a million more trees planned by end of 2010. Ability to reduce drug dependency is vast, since Afghan-sourced heroin is sold globally. And: In Afghanistan, Texas soldiers see path to victory through creation of wheat-seed farm superior to the 2,500 acres and subsistence plots controlled by Taliban (click 'See also').

Ancient practice of capturing rainwater illegal in Colorado. Rainwater, it says, should flow into surrounding creeks and streams, to reach farmers, ranchers, others that have bought waterway rights. Colorado has more claims than water. Study shows 97 percent of rainwater that falls on soil never makes it to streams. Bills in Colorado, Utah propose adjusting for pilot projects, drought-depleted rural areas.

As exodus continues from rural France, new, playful ad campaign aims to update image of farming to attract 'young blood. Farmers seen as guardians of rural and gastronomical heritage in country where each region boasts its own wine, cheese, sausage. And: Decision to enter farming helped by relative attractiveness of farm versus nonfarm earning opportunities and by ease of entry into farming as a business, says USDA (click 'See also').

After military takeover of Mauritania, girls as young as five again being force-fed for marriage, activist says. She decries backward steps that equate woman's size with space in husband's heart. Girls are taken to 'fattening farms,' where typical 'leblouh' diet for six-year-old includes 4.4 pounds millet, 2 cups of butter, 21 quarts camel's milk daily. And: Fat symbolizes wealth, social class in remote areas (click 'See also').

In Florida's Immokalee tomato fields, slavery, squalid living conditions are symptoms of system that exploits immigrants so supermarkets can sell winter tomatoes and fast-food outlets can add them to sandwiches. In 12 years, officials have freed 1,000-plus workers.

The more fast food restaurants, the higher the relative risk of stroke, study shows. For every fast food restaurant in a neighborhood, the relative risk of stroke went up one percent, and researchers wonder: Is it the food, or an unhealthy neighborhood?

Growing a vegetable garden won't balance budget, replace lost benefits or make up for shock of lost job. But part of our crisis is sense of alienation, powerlessness. You don't meet many alienated gardeners, unless it's been a terrible woodchuck year. And: A deepening drift of seed catalogs and the virtual gardens of winter (click 'See also').

Investigators probe practices of Iowa meat processor after evacuating disabled workers from 'deplorable' town-owned living quarters. Since late 1970s, Henry's Turkey Service has shipped mentally impaired men from Texas to Iowa to pull guts, pluck feathers at turkey processing plant. Company acted as employer, landlord, caregiver, leaving men with as little as $65 per month in salary. All of them expected to lose their jobs in the next few weeks.

Starbucks was great American backup plan, offering promise of simpler life: Serve, smile, achieve perfect cappuccino foam - and it came with health insurance. Company still huge, but as it struggles, its status as fantasy shrinks. Still, making 200 drinks an hour focuses the mind.

Activists, chefs, farmers in Illinois, full of hope with Obama administration, name a few changes they would like to see: Truth in labeling, better food safety, local food infrastructure support, encouragement of new farmers, commitment to urban agriculture and adequately funding school food programs.

In primeval beauty of Delta lowlands, second-generation rice farmer whose life is defined by guns - growing up in woods with a rifle, working as guide during duck season, feeding his family from a freezer full of game and fish, taking his son hunting for white-tailed deer - is wary about what he sees as Obama's urban perspective. Others there mistrust his message of optimism, recall his gun- and religion-clinging comment.

Financial woes end hopes for Copia, a California wine and food institute funded in part by late winemaker Robert Mondavi. Financial stability for venture was elusive, and nonprofit never drew visitors needed to support it and its organic herb gardens, demonstration kitchen and restaurant named for Julia Child.

Featuring native peoples from exotic locales who have never eaten a hamburger, new television spot (click 'See also') from Burger King feature 'Whopper Virgins' sampling - and choosing - between company's product, those of McDonald's. Critics call documentary-style ads 'ugly Americanism,' and misuse of money in food-starved world.

Supermarket gift cards trumped those from Target, Best Buy at L.A.-area Gifts for Guns. Event took in record 965 weapons, more than double last year's total. People need to put food on the table, said official. Fewer guns stolen in home invasions means fewer guns on streets.

On a chance visit to a Pakistani restaurant in London, three siblings are overcome: The mutton, samosa flavors are the best tasted since visits to their aunt's home 20 years ago, and so evocative they brought to mind the punk orange she once dyed her hair. A visit to the restaurant kitchen reveals link to family, memory and culture.

Media exposure strongly linked to childhood obesity, tobacco use and other woes, says new report that probes 30 years of data, mostly focused on movies, music, television. Along with hours of screen time, content matters - children adapt character traits, behaviors from those they watch or hear, researcher says. Parents, another says, should get involved.

NASA reports successful repairs on water regeneration system, which processes urine, perspiration and bathwater into drinking water. Reliable system is required to support expanded crew of six astronauts, scheduled for arrival in May 2009. Station's kitchen also was updated.

Return to home cooking means better nutrition, health. Tips for efficiency in kitchen: cook in batches and freeze some, use frozen vegetables, add beans for protein, switch to whole wheat pastas. Turn cooking into family activity - children who help cook are more interested in new foods, flavors. And, they learn a skill.

As farmers, ranchers age, health-care needs can push them away from agriculture for jobs that provide health insurance, study finds. Buying individual health insurance helps protect land. Farmers long for state-administered group plan, and try to hold on till Medicare. 'It's a hell of a thing to wish a good chunk of your life away (for the comfort of health care coverage),' says respondent.

Lebanese group wants EU to grant legal protection to hummus, tabbouleh, arak in same way it gave Greek milk producers exclusive use of the name feta in 2005, and similar to protection for France's claim over champagne and Italy's over parmesan.

Software developer plants tomato seedlings, harvests 10,990 ripe tomatoes and an obsession. But he's not alone. Backyard tomato gardening draws those in search for memory, or just a great dinner, says another gardener, who has turned his hobby into Tomatomania, a series of seedling sales that have drawn 12,000 to 15,000 shoppers.

In the midst of sprawling, densely packed slum, an organic vegetable garden marked by sunflowers grows in Kenya, tended by a group of new farmers - young, unemployed men. Success was unlikely in area which just months before was site of ethnic clashes, street battles between riot police and protesters demonstrating over flawed presidential elections.

Those planning life of crime might consider a diet low in processed foods, says inventor of new fingerprinting technique. Perspiration of those who eat junk food contains more salt, and salty, sweaty fingerprints leave more telltale, corrosive impression on metal - or on bomb fragments. That leads, he says, to an indirect link between obesity and the chances of being fingered for a crime.

Now that water rights are returning to Native American community after 100-plus years, elders turn to real battle: reversing epidemic rates of diabetes, obesity, alcoholism by recapturing farming tradition. Upstream farms took water that had been used by tribe since 16th century; government replaced fresh foods with shipments of white flour, lard, canned meats and other processed foods.

Nation's biggest 'dinner party for revolutionaries' under way in San Francisco, where tens of thousands have gathered. Organizers of Slow Food Nation hope that four-day event, with its foundation of gastronomic pleasure, health and fair labor stoked by political rallies and lectures, shows power of a new mainstream. And: The Healthy Food and Agriculture Declaration (click 'See also').

In society that takes comfort in its politicians hunching over burgers from the Dollar Menu at fast-food outlets, Alice Waters, with her Edible Schoolyard, is truly subversive. She plants seeds of honest taste memories in every child. To become American, Slow Food must figure out how to make sure everyone can afford a lovely, local bunch of carrots.

Denver's National Western Stock Show, which brings ranchers, farmers together to match cows to stockyards for slaughter, market or shipping, drew about 674,000 visitors this year - 10 times more than expected for Barack Obama's acceptance speech.

In Queens, architects transform public school courtyard into urban farm, with 51 different vegetables planted in wide cardboard tubes and chickens clucking in their coop. Videos, fabric cutouts and sound recordings evoke piglets, cows and goats. Presence of food and green draws people, who pick and graze.

Backyard gardener works on three scales: With raspberries, boysenberries, he heads to the back door of Chez Panisse restaurant for that night's dinner. His wild mushrooms - often chanterelles - are sold at California's Monterey Market. And in Afghanistan, he helps restore orchards destroyed by war.

As Olympics draw closer, Beijing offers restaurants an official English translation of local dishes whose exotic and sometimes alarming names can leave foreigners unsure. But critics complain that Chinese traditions are lost in translation. Which would you order: a dish of 'steamed pullet' or 'chicken without sexual life'?

The South's dedicated bakers quake as White Lily's new corporate owners prepare to close historic Tennessee flour plant and move operations to Midwest. Already, they can tell a difference: New flour is gray and coarse and makes a denser product than fine and fluffy chlorine-bleached product.

Seventeen-pound gourmet watermelon auctioned in Japan for $6,100 as buyers compete for prestige of owning first ones of the year; buyer says he wants to support local agriculture. Biggest watermelon from the day was later priced at $5,945; other watermelons of the season will likely cost $188 to $283. Two cantaloupes last month sold for $23,500.

Obesity, beyond health risks including diabetes, joint pain, congestive heart failure, strokes, back pain, sleep apnea and depression, is also about root causes and society's denial. As a physician, let me 'not fail to see what is visible.' If obesity is not going to be confronted honestly in a medical setting, where will that difficult conversation take place?

Banana price wars lead British grocers' competitive efforts as discount stores enjoy increase in affluent customers. Other temptations include reduced prices, 'extra free' deals and bogofs (buy one, get one free). Pasta, rice and other staples have risen as much as 80 percent; wholesale banana prices are up about 20 cents a pound since 2007.

In poor urban neighborhoods, childhood obesity fueled by takeout joints serving fatty calories through bulletproof glass pass-throughs, absence of greengrocers, and culinary culture rich in fried foods and carbohydrates. One study showed that most students skipped breakfast, drank four sodas a day, ate at a corner store or had takeout twice a day, had a TV in their bedroom and did not have a grocery store in their neighborhood.

Beyond short-term needs of water, food, shelter, refugees streaming out of central China's hills will need help in restoring farms and rebuilding communities after earthquake erased prosperous agriculture-based society. Ten million people were directly affected by the earthquake in some way across half a dozen provinces, with Sichuan hit the hardest, New China News Agency reports.

As Mexico imports more corn from US, its reliance on outside supplies draws criticism from patriots and from those who see few benefits from NAFTA. As alternative, Oaxacan farmers, working communally, reforest and terrace to reclaim parched land, dig canals to recharge water tables and restore springs in hopes that people stay to work their farms.

Illegal immigrant farm workers may visit clinic or hospital if they are severely ill, but without insurance, much care comes from spiritual healers, home remedies and self-medication. Many Latino immigrants arrive healthy, but then develop US afflictions: diet-related disease, plus injuries from field work. Study shows medical costs of illegal immigrants was half as large as expected for population.

To change public conversation about the food system, we must understand its current framing in journalism as a consumer issue, which obscures food systems and policy issues. Primary task of food reform movement is to introduce and sustain a Big Picture of the food system. Among others: reassign responsibility to the system, link our children's health to the food system we leave to them and to our stewardship of the Earth.

Arty, cheeky, ironic, yet curiously refreshing, new quarterly magazine, Meatpaper, looks deep into meat and the endless variety of rituals, symbolism and taboos surrounding it to tell us a lot about our fellow humans.

Gardening, and its connection to palate and soil, is timeless, whether you're planning to convince the new president to plant an edible garden (and a political statement) on the White House lawn, or laying your BlackBerry in a protected spot while you dig for authenticity. What's the same is the miracle, the buried gold, of tasting that first potato.

To some pollsters, we vote what we eat. Dr Pepper and Chick-fil-A, Republican; Pepsi and Popeyes, Democratic. Then there's Oysters St. Claude, a crossover dish at Upperline restaurant in New Orleans. Says the creator: 'You have a respect and a yearning for the past, but a feeling like you want something new and exciting that says let's go all the way.

Harvesting clams among the Colombian mangroves is no easy task - ranging calf-deep in mud, watching for snakes, scorpions, centipedes and biting fish. Worse, though are pollution, over-harvesting and drug-trafficking that threaten both food source and way of life for community of slaves' descendants that is unusual in its spirit of altruism and cooperation.

As California declares a state of emergency and appeals for disaster aid after Pacific salmon population collapse, fourth-generation fisherman/restaurateur and others worry whether they've caught their last salmon. At Bayside Marine, sales of beer and bait are dead. Bay Sportsmen fishing club gather to commiserate over the bleak picture; lamb, not salmon, was the main course.

When working conditions are brutal, as they are in Antarctica, the morale of the camp rises and falls on the food served in the cafeteria. So chefs pore over magazines - Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living and others - then approximate the dishes based on mostly frozen, canned or dried foods shipped in once a year after an icebreaker clears the way.

Old-style farmers in Poland struggle as farming standards of EU exclude them and Smithfield and other factory farms push pork and milk prices down. Nearby abattoirs go out of business and local milk collection stations close, even as shoppers line up for locally grown, organic foods. About 22 percent of workforce is in agriculture; farms average about 17 acres.

Two men apply long-term planning to their Ann Arbor deli, and become arbiters of taste in America's booming artisanal food industry and middlemen between artisan and consumer. With that long-term plan due up in 2009, Zingerman's owners are again taking the long view. Possibilities: a publishing house, microbrewery, a small hotel, fish and meat-smoking business.

College students mobilize to oppose McGill University's gradual switch from student-run cafes to Chartwells, a global food service company that is part of Compass Group. Eight student-run cafés on campus have been shut down since 2001.

Slow Food is as "global" as McDonald's but networked, not hierarchical. It is a potent promotion machine that preserves for small elite the valuable goods and services that, as an economic system, globalization destroys. Tiny sacramental packages of gourmet products with irreducible rarity can't be sold to mass consumers because they don't scale up in volume. That's tough for capitalism but easy for a cultural network.

Ready-made vineyards in Argentina lure those longing to fulfill wine-making fantasies. Investors buy plots, called vineyard estates or turnkey vineyards, then pay a management group an annual fee to plant and care for vines, then harvest and sell the grapes. Napa Valley land is $50,000 to $300,000 an acre; the same in Mendoza is $4,000 to $16,000.

More British eat convenience foods during the week to leave time for television-show leisure cooking during the weekend, says report. Thus people can "buy fresh" like Jamie Oliver, make sexy-looking meals a la Nigella Lawson, and cheat using ready-made ingredients like Delia Smith.

All-you-can-eat seats merge gluttony and Major League Baseball, and sell seats in distant bleachers that once stayed empty. Braves have the fanciest menu; Diamondbacks have the most expensive section. Critics say that setting aside places for fans to gorge is irresponsible, considering diet-related disease epidemic.

The way neighborhoods develop, including proximity to fast-food outlets, distance to supermarkets, residential density, mixed-use zoning, street connectivity, and access to recreational facilities means that urban planners play key role in healthy body weights of residents, Canadian researchers learn.

In borsch is the history that tied peasant to cosmonaut, the Urals to the Kremlin. The faint outline of the Tsarist-Soviet imperium glimmers in the collective steam off bowls of beet and cabbage in meat stock. Ukrainian peasant cuisine signifies a past where abundance alternated with dearth, and the community of domestic borsch-makers is a rebuke to political borders, order and standardization. For recipe, click 'See also.'

Chefs complain as cherished Santa Monica Farmers' Market attracts big companies that hog the spring peas and other delicacies, then ship them out to upscale supermarkets or restaurants. But years ago, chefs supplanted home cooks by arriving earlier to get cream of the crop. Farmers point out they will take orders, but chefs prefer impulse buys.

The classic dairy cow, a Holstein, now is a curiosity in suburban Virginia.

Three-car garages face off with a cluster of weathered barns and silos as Virginia county's last dairy farm runs 24/7 family business that dates to 1847. The county is filled with subdivisions named after the farms they've replaced. Change mirrors national trend; in 28 years, number of dairy farms nationwide has decreased almost 75 percent, as operations consolidate.

Hunters worry that farm/food bill negotiations will neglect Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to maintain wildlife habitat and protect water quality. Program, already challenged by high commodity crop and land prices, is credited with producing extra 2.2 million ducks and 13.5 million pheasants annually, protecting 170,000 miles of stream banks and keeping 450 million tons of topsoil where it belongs.

As real estate values soar, supermarkets are demolished, reducing inner city residents' access and consumption of fruits and vegetables and stoking high rates of diabetes. In New York, mayor is bringing back greengrocer pushcarts, and starting programs that encourage bodegas to stock low-fat milk and single-serving bags of fruits and vegetables.

In this online food game, you're the waiter and restaurateur. You pick cute outfits, serve food and earn tips, buy diners, decorate them, and generally save the day. And as you attempt to multitask, you may find new respect for those who serve at restaurants.

Battling time limits on shopping and cooking, we are becoming our own food inspectors, using the Internet, balancing concerns of food safety, sustainability, cost and convenience, and making necessary trade-offs. Farmers, activists and retailers are positioning themselves as trusted sources. Costco, for instance, performed 34,365 tests for E. coli at its plant in 2007. The USDA performed 12,290 nationwide.

Retailers and manufacturers realize that ice is the year-'round hot snack and a tongue-numbing industry is created. Fans debate the best for crunching - Chewblets, Nugget Ice, Pearl Ice - but the shaved version, in a glass and with enough water to temporarily fuse the ice, is a classic.

Capitol's House cafeterias revamped to make meals more organic and local, and muttering about elitism and public funds begins. Lobbyists complain to Restaurant Associates, the food service provider, about presentation of their particular commodity, but the venture is making money. Senate cafe, running a $1.3 million yearly deficit, has no plans to go green.

With food occupying so much of our time and energy, it's natural that we take at least a chapter of our vocabulary from the subject. Consider, for instance, the avocado, from the Aztec ahuacatl, meaning 'testicle' because of its shape. This, and more from Anu Garg's new book, "The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two."

With internet access broadening, affluence moves into rural America, bringing a taste for Guinness, microbrews, $200 bottles of Barolo and organic markets. Developers buy land for up to 40 times its price as farmland, and tax bills shoot skyward. Only scenic areas are at risk; mining towns and Great Plains' farming populations are either steady or shrinking.

Great thinkers gather to ponder their list of 100 fruits and vegetables, with the task a simple one: Which are standouts from the last 50 years? Some answers were off course (a pork sausage, a table, a Scrabble game), but in short: lemons, Brussels sprouts, celery, tomatoes, pawpaws, baked beans, mushrooms, pomegranates and beets.

With food prices at a 17-year-high, we are changing our eating habits - buying cheaper ingredients, shopping at discount grocers and eating out less frequently. High prices are blamed on meat cravings of the growing middle class, weather-related crop disasters and the grain-fueled ethanol craze.

With fuel oil prices rising in rural Maine, life for elderly gets harder. Former workers, many in the state's food industries - fish, lobster, clams, sardines, potatoes, blueberries - are eating beans and biscuits and can't afford bingo at the VFW but figure that others are worse off.

From fish fry to fish fry, presidential candidates show solidarity with voters as they eat their way across America, but between events, it's a brutal procession of grilled chicken on wilted lettuce, soggy French fries and power bars.

Amateur historian finds 600-year-old recipe for beef-and-pork Thuringian sausages which are still symbols of Germany's cultural heritage and snacks at football matches; to view the original parchment, visit the Bratwurst Museum near the eastern city of Erfurt.

Garlic lovers and coffee drinkers likely inherited tastes from their parents, say researchers at King's College London who studied food preferences of more than 10,000 sets of twins; news might predict limited success of government's effort to change children's diets.

Praying to the god of corn has its price: nitrogen waste in the waterways, taxpayer money feeding the industry, low-nutrition meat from animals that eat it, but it provides a fertile field of medical research, and in Mexico, growing corn is the only way one farmer ensures his wife's tortillas have the authentic taste.

Crete, once home to ultra-healthful Mediterranean diet and religion-based fasting, is evolving to suit modern tastes, adding air-conditioned supermarket with apples from Chile - and a hospital that includes a wing for cardiac care, once a rarity on the island.

Inspired by environmental justice and groups that feed the homeless with surplus food, freegans in New York eschew capitalism and scavenge for groceries in the 50 million pounds of food garbage discarded annually; they favor D'Agostino's, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.

As Atlanta grows, community garden plots are feeding the burgeoning appetite for locally grown produce and mingling of cultures; advocacy group partners with administration to open parks for communal plots.

Whether in miniscule back yards or near abandoned houses, urban farmers find every sunny spot and put it to use in effort to connect to their food; backyard chicken and egg trend in Salt Lake City is nothing short of coop d'etat.

Seeking the perfect tomato means eschewing perfectly formed orbs in favor of a weedy tangle of vines in which antique, thin-skinned heirloom treasures are hidden; this obsession is an art in the Merrimack Valley, where growers proliferate.

Despite day jobs, couple hunt, fish and gather about a third of the food they eat, using a nearly comprehensive mental map of Seattle foraging spots to relish what they call unbelievably bountiful land.

Escoffier would be shocked, but Hugo Liu, computer whiz at the MIT Media Lab is shaking up the food world with blend of artificial intelligence and obsession, running recipes through deconstruction computer program and sorting them by emotion.

Some swear that Mr. Pastie's English beef-and-potato pies, now sold internationally, have magical powers; at the very least, they connect Gar Sleep, the 78-year-old company owner, to a large part of his family history.

Mushy sides aside, fried chicken from Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits is some of the best soul food in Boston - but does it matter that this tender, juicy, extra crunchy bird with a cayenne kick is from a chain, if it's a cool chain?

It's the cooking pot that encouraged monogamy and led to smaller jaws, bigger brains, smaller guts, shorter arms, and longer legs, says a Harvard primatologist who believes that fire was used for heating food as long as two million years ago.

With glasses of plum moonshine smoothing the way, writer eschews mushrooms but eats a bowl of pork fat soup made by cook who lives in the radioactive danger zone near Chernobyl; later, his stomach shows high radiation levels.